


i wanna be your endgame

by kathillards



Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Flirting, M/M, Post Series, emotional tension, hiiro isnt great at flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 05:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13734621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathillards/pseuds/kathillards
Summary: After the battle against Gamedeus and Chronus, the CR riders have become something of celebrities. Some of them handle it better than others.





	i wanna be your endgame

**Author's Note:**

> get it? endgame? because. because games.  
> anyway i missed this stupid show so i dug this stupid fic up out of my documents so i could spend some time with these stupid gamers :)

Hiiro drops the cardboard box on the table in front of him with no introduction but a grunt of annoyance.

Emu looks up from his files and blinks. The box is labeled ‘To CR’ and is jammed full of letters, all different kinds of envelopes, and some of them looking stuffed to the brim. There’s enough of a floral scent floating around the box that he thinks some of them have been perfumed.

“Uh,” he says. “What is—”

“Fan mail.” Hiiro’s tone of voice puts the word ‘fan mail’ on the same level of dignity as ‘dog poop.’ “For us.”

“For… what?”

Hiiro picks a letter up at random, reads the address, and shoves it in Emu’s face. “The public is really grateful. _Very_ grateful.” He makes a face and looks down at the box. “This is a… token of their appreciation for the Kamen Riders.”

Emu stares down at the pink envelope. It’s addressed to ‘Ex-Aid.’ “This is for me?”

Hiiro glances at him with a look that most would call his ‘are you stupid?’ look. Emu is on the receiving end often enough that he just calls it Hiiro’s default look. “Yes, Emu, most of these are for you. Some of them are for _you_ as a doctor because of that press conference you gave. And a _lot_ of them are for Ex-Aid.”

Emu opens it carefully, although it still tears in the corner. “Did all these _just_ come in? That’s a lot of letters.”

Hiiro has pulled out another one and is surveying it with the sort of look one might use to survey a bomb. “Apparently, they’ve been coming in all year. Father had them set to the side because we were always so busy.”

“Is that one for you?” Emu glances at the blue envelope that Hiiro is holding but hasn’t dared open.

“No.” The face he makes is somehow more sour now. “It’s for the licenseless doctor.”

“Taiga,” Emu corrects gently.

Hiiro pauses. “Taiga.”

At least he’s getting better. Emu skims over the letter in his hands—it’s two pages long and full of words describing how cool and awesome Ex-Aid is and how much the writer wants to meet him, and it finishes with a pretty impressive drawing of Hyper Muteki.

“This is nice,” he says with a smile. When he looks back up at Hiiro, there’s a frown on his face. “What’s the matter? You don’t like people telling you how much they love you?”

Hiiro rolls his eyes and tosses the card he’d been reading at Emu. “That one’s a marriage proposal.”

“For who?” Emu demands, then reads the card. He can feel his face turn pink. “Oh.”

“She definitely seems like your type,” Hiiro says, voice dry.

Emu glances at him. “Did you just make a joke?”

Hiiro’s face goes blank. “No.”

.

The letters don’t stop coming, which utterly delights at least one member of CR, even if it’s neither Hiiro nor Emu.

“Hey, look, this one drew some sort of hybrid of Brave and Ex-Aid,” Kiriya crows, holding up a card. “It could be your child.”

“How would we possibly have a child?” Hiiro asks, and immediately seems to regret it when Kiriya opens his mouth. “Do not answer that.”

“I was gonna suggest cloning,” Kiriya says innocently.

“No, you weren’t.”

Emu interjects before Kiriya can bait Hiiro into legitimate anger. “Shouldn’t we have a system for these things? Like someone should be answering them?”

Hiiro arches an eyebrow. “Sorry, you want to answer your marriage proposals?”

“It’s the polite thing to do,” Emu insists.

“Even the one that talked about how she wanted Ex-Aid to—”

Emu clamps his hand over Kiriya’s mouth. “Maybe not all of them.”

Hiiro scoffs. “If you want to answer yours, be my guest.”

“And tell this one that Ex-Aid and Brave do actually make passionate love while playing video games like she believes,” Kiriya adds, waving the aforementioned card in his face.

Emu wills himself not to flush when he snatches the card away from Kiriya and crumples it up. “I _said_ not all of them.”

“Hey, people are always gonna talk.” Kiriya slings an easy arm around his shoulders and smiles. “May as well give them something interesting to talk about.”

.

The unfortunate thing is that Kiriya isn’t wrong. Every time Emu steps out of the hospital, there are people whispering about the doctors that saved the world, the bravest ones coming up to ask for autographs or just thanking him for rescuing their friends and family from Kamen Rider Chronicle.

“How do they know _we’re_ the Riders?” Emu asks Hiiro in a whisper as they walk out of the hospital one day without their lab coats on, in an attempt to hide from the fans. “It was supposed to be a secret.”

Hiiro shrugs. In the warm light of the late afternoon, wearing only his button-down shirt and pants, he looks downright approachable; Emu thinks the fan clubs are missing out if they’re only imagining him in his Rider suit.

“Cyber Rescue put their name all over when we ended Chronicle. And we only have five employees. Probably wasn’t a reach to assume we were all Riders.”

“I don’t know if I like it,” Emu confesses as they enter the relative privacy of the parking garage, the cool gray shadows falling all around them. “It’s weird to have all these people… wanting to know me.”

“You mean you _don’t_ want those girls falling all over themselves to talk to Kamen Rider Ex-Aid?” Hiiro asks, sounding only slightly skeptical. “Some of them are pretty cute, Emu.”

Emu’s lips twitch. It’s nice, to have Hiiro call him by his name instead of ‘intern’—unlike with Taiga’s name, he doesn’t need to be reminded of it five times a day—and to actually bother to joke around with him every once in a while.

“Not really my type,” he admits, stopping by his car. He drops his keys—usually it’s just because he’s clumsy, but sometimes it’s because he wants an extra minute or two with Hiiro—and fumbles for a moment to pick them up.

Hiiro, instead of turning and heading down the garage to where his parking spot is, stops where he is, looking at Emu curiously. “None of them?”

“Nope.” Emu pops the ‘p’ and smiles at him as he stands up. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah…” Hiiro’s face flickers in confusion for just long enough that Emu catches it. “See you tomorrow, intern.”

“It’s Emu!” he calls at Hiiro’s back. “I’m not an intern anymore!”

.

Sometimes, they get gifts, too. Taiga likes to send Nico to collect the ones for Snipe, either because he’s actually busy or because she just loves to cackle over them first. Or, possibly, he has no idea about them and Nico is hoarding them for herself.

Emu thinks either possibility has potential. She bounds into CR with her official name badge from Taiga’s hospital and goes right over to the basket full of their gifts.

“Anything interesting?” she asks, rooting through for the gifts labeled Snipe. Today, there’s a T-shirt, a lovingly hand-crafted ugly plushie of Snipe, and a pencil case labeled ‘Bang Bang Shooting.’

“What do you classify as interesting?” Hiiro asks, nursing a cup of coffee from the table behind her and Emu. His voice is high with disdain that indicates he would rather not be having this conversation, but feels he ought to anyways.

“Oh, you know.” Nico shrugs, picking up a Taddle Legacy gashat made of colored paper. “New video games. Candy. I bet you get a lot of that. Dildos.”

Emu chokes. “What?”

“You didn’t see that?” Nico grins at him in abject delight. “Oh, it was great. Taiga was in here when it came in and he said that—”

She breaks off abruptly and Emu swivels his head on instinct to see Hiiro glowering at her.

“Nothing,” Nico finishes brightly. “He said nothing.”

Emu stares at her, but she seems to consider the conversation done, because she gathers up Taiga’s gifts in her arms and heads off with a cheery “See you losers later” tossed over her shoulder.

Hiiro clears his throat.

“We got a _dildo_?” Emu asks in the uncomfortably loud silence. “From who?”

“Does it matter?” Hiiro asks, impatient and snappy all of a sudden. Emu recoils. “We threw it away. Obviously.”

“Obviously?” Emu blinks at his back as Hiiro stands and begins to walk away. “Who was it for?”

“You, of course.” He doesn’t face Emu, but it’s still obvious he’s rolling his eyes. “One of your fangirls.”

“Well, what if I wanted it?” Emu demands, half in outrage and half just to see what Hiiro would say.

Hiiro freezes for a minute. “Why would you… want it?”

Emu exhales a breath through his teeth to avoid bursting into laughter. “Some people have needs, Hiiro.”

Hiiro turns to look at him, his face a mask of clear confusion. “You—what—are you messing with me?”

“I would never,” Emu says solemnly, “joke about dildos.”

He swears he sees Hiiro hide a smile before he leaves.

.

Taiga comes by with two bottles of wine and a new video game from Genm Co. wrapped in pink and green ribbons and drops all three objects unceremoniously in front of Emu.

“Are you asking me on a date?” Emu asks in complete seriousness.

Taiga rolls his eyes. “It’s from your fan club at Genm Co. To thank you for your service or whatever. What is Hiiro doing?”

Hiiro looks up from his cake-cutting. “Surgery.”

“This is really sweet,” Emu says, reading the card on the back of the video game addressed to Ex-Aid. “Did you get some too?”

“No.” Taiga looks briefly disgruntled. “But it’s probably for the best, since I’m pretty sure that comes from the girl who wanted Ex-Aid to have virtual sex with her.”

Emu blinks. “What.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a thing,” Kiriya says, appearing out of thin air in a blur of pixels. Hiiro and Taiga both jump; Emu spends enough time around Bugsters that he’s immune to their particular brand of teleportation. “Adult video games. It’s a whole new genre.”

“You know too much about these things,” Emu accuses him.

“I live in video games,” Kiriya says, plopping on the couch next to him. “Come on, let’s open these and have a game tournament. Like old times!”

“We have literally never done that,” says Hiiro.

Kiriya beams. “No better time to start.”

.

Emu is just drunk enough that Hiiro takes him to his own apartment instead of dropping him off at home afterwards. The game tournament had gotten a bit out of hand once Pallad and Poppy showed up, and then Nico joined in from university because Taiga called her and trounced all of them by being the only sober gamer there and then…

“Things got weird,” Emu muses, collapsing on Hiiro’s couch. “Sorry,” he adds, because his shoes are leaving dirt on Hiiro’s perfectly-cleaned sterile white carpet.

“Things always get weird around you, Hojo,” says Hiiro with a sigh that isn’t as annoyed as it probably should be. “I have a guest room, you know.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine.” Emu curls up into a ball around one of the couch cushions. “This is really comfortable.”

“Hojo,” Hiiro sighs again, and then the couch is sinking under his weight. “You’re too long for the couch, you’re going to fall.”

Emu smiles at him. “But you’ll catch me?”

“No,” Hiiro says. “I’ll let you fall and then I’ll mock you for it.”

Emu feels slightly dizzy either from the alcohol or from Hiiro leaning over to adjust the pillow behind his head with a certain amount of tenderness that he would never ordinarily show. His hair is falling loose over his eyes, and it’s something special, he thinks, to see Hiiro without all of his usual composure.

“You’re doing that right now,” Emu tells him and his hand reaches out to grab Hiiro’s entirely of its own accord. “I fall… and you get annoyed.”

“Because you’re a doctor, and you shouldn’t be—”

Emu tugs him in closer and the kiss is as sweet as any of Hiiro’s cakes. The wine tinges his lips; Hiiro’s mouth is soft and warm and then it’s not there anymore. He blinks sleepily and finds Hiiro staring at him with a look on his face that can only be described as…

“You’re drunk,” says Hiiro.

Disappointment.

“I’m not that drunk,” Emu protests, but Hiiro shakes his head and untangles their fingers. “You don’t want this.”

He means it as a question, but his voice falters and fades halfway through the words, and then it is a heavy statement landing with a clunk in between them. Hiiro closes his eyes and then, slowly, stands to his feet.

“Get some rest,” he says, in a voice so soft that Emu can hardly believe it’s aimed at him.

“Sorry,” Emu mutters. “For kissing you.”

He hears Hiiro sigh again, but doesn’t turn to look this time.

.

At the next press conference, which for some reason they have decided to have monthly to update the press and the public on the status of their work in rehabilitating the victims and rescuing those lost to the Game Disease, a reporter stands up and asks him, to his face, “Are you dating Hiiro Kagami?”

Emu stares at him—he’s a sharp-dressed man in his early forties, so there’s absolutely no way he _cares_ about this, but the reporter continues looking at him expectantly.

“Um,” he says carefully. “What.”

Another reporter, this one a lady who is equally sharp-dressed and sharp-eyed as well, stands and adds, “There are rumors you spent a night at his house last week. People saw you leaving the apartment. If you could just clarify the status of your relationship with him—”

“…We’re friends.”

This seems to convince no one.

“Just friends?” presses the first reporter.

“Yes, just friends,” Emu snaps. “He’s my colleague. There’s nothing—what does it matter to any of this, anyway?”

“With all due respect, Mr. Hojo,” says the woman, “the lives of you and your colleagues at CR are a source of hope and inspiration to the people of Japan. You can hardly blame them for being interested in your personal lives.”

Emu opens and closes his mouth.

“What was the reason you were at his house last Friday?” Another reporter stands up to ask this question, despite Emu’s best efforts at staring him down. “Was it purely professional or was it for pleasure?”

The way he says ‘pleasure’ gets about half the room smirking. Emu takes two steps back from the podium, his face heating up.

“It’s none of your business,” he begins, but this only opens another floodgate of questions. “We are _here_ to talk about the Game Disease—!”

Poppy clears her throat from behind him. Emu whips his head around to look at her in wild panic.

“Everyone,” she says, raising her voice to be heard above the reporters. “The press conference is now over. Please exit the room. If you have any further questions, you can direct them to the Board of Directors of Cyber Rescue. Thank you for coming.”

Emu nearly sags against her as the reporters begin to file out with some grumbling. “I owe you.”

Poppy pats his shoulder. “They’re being ridiculous,” she assures him. “Whatever happens between you and Hiiro isn’t anyone’s business but yours.”

Emu presses his lips together. “Mmhm.”

Poppy gives him one of her Asuna looks, where she knows he’s being cagey but she’s going to let him get away with it since it isn’t life-threatening. Emu smiles at her and hopes to God that Hiiro doesn’t watch the footage of this press conference.

.

Taiga eyes him strangely when he goes over to his hospital to drop off his latest gifts in person. “Nico was going to come over after her classes today.”

“I wasn’t busy,” Emu says, handing him the box of cookies shaped like Snipe’s head and a toy gun. “Besides, I like being at your hospital, Taiga. It’s comfortable.”

“Thanks,” says Taiga dubiously. “Is that the only reason?”

Emu blinks at him. “What else?”

Taiga snorts, but waves him over to a chair where he can sit and watch Taiga run diagnostics on the results of his Game Disease patients. He manages this in mostly silence for about an hour until Nico bursts through the door.

“Taiga, did you hear that—” She stops in her tracks when she sees Emu sitting there. “Oh, you’re here.”

“Good to see you, too, Nico.”

Nico tilts her head and studies him carefully. Emu shifts under her gaze; she has a way of rooting out a person’s deepest insecurities with just one look and he doesn’t need that sort of power aimed at him any more than necessary.

“You’re hiding,” she announces after a moment. Taiga raises an eyebrow at her. “What’s the matter? Is it Hiiro? Is he being a dick because of the press conference?”

Emu exhales a sigh. Trust her to suss out the truth in two seconds. “I’m not hiding, I just… don’t wanna be at CR right now.”

“Because of Hiiro,” Nico presses.

“…Yes, because of Hiiro,” he concedes.

Taiga swivels his chair around to look at him properly. “Did something happen between you two?”

Emu groans. “It’s bad enough the rest of the public wants to know every detail of the CR’s relationships, now you guys do too?”

Nico hops up on the closest bed and beams at him. “Don’t take it personally, your drama is just really funny.”

Taiga holds up a hand before Emu can retort. “Ignore her. What _did_ happen?”

As loathe as he is to confess to both of them at the same time, the secret is getting a little much to bear, especially since Hiiro will barely look at him since it happened.

“We kissed.”

“That’s it?” Nico snorts. “Bo- _ring_. Call me when you use one of those toys.”

“ _Nico_.” Taiga shakes his head, but there’s a smirk twitching his lips. “Look, wouldn’t it be easier if you just talked to him about it?”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t wanna talk to me,” Emu says with a great sigh that he hadn’t realized he was carrying until now. Suddenly, the weight of what happened, the way his friendship with Hiiro had been so suddenly slammed off-course, seems to sink down into his shoulders. “It was a mistake, anyway. I was drunk.”

“Ohhh, that’s different,” Nico says, tapping a finger to her chin. “So, you _don’t_ like him, you were just drunk?”

“No, I…” Emu frowns, shaking his head. “I do like him. I mean—I don’t know. He’s still got—Saki. And I’m just… he doesn’t like me that way.”

“Saki isn’t here anymore,” Nico says impatiently. “And if he didn’t like you, he would have told you to fuck off already. Did he do that?”

Emu blinks at her. “No, but—”

“This sounds like you’re carrying a problem that isn’t actually yours,” Taiga interrupts. “Just tell him the truth. Sober. What he does with it, is his problem. And if he doesn’t like you, it’s not like you don’t have plenty of fanboys to date.”

Emu makes a face at him. “That’s not what I want and you know it.”

“You never know until you try.” Taiga grins. “Some of them are pretty good in—”

Nico smacks him. “Don’t be like that.”

Despite himself, Emu laughs.

.

Pallad is playing video games in the common room of CR when he finally screws up his courage and heads back. Poppy isn’t there, probably off being Asuna and working with the Board of Directors or Dr. Kagami on something. Aside from the two of them, the CR is almost depressingly empty.

“Oh, Emu!” Pallad looks up from his game and grins at him. “You got a package. Or maybe it’s Brave’s, I don’t know.”

“Hiiro,” Emu tells him. Pallad shrugs, uncaring, and returns to beating up soldiers or whatever new game he’s playing.

The package sitting on the table is a sparkly silver gift bag, and inside it, he finds a box full of chocolates and candies. He puzzles over it for a moment—there’s no card, but surely it’s for Hiiro, who else likes chocolates this much? Emu receives more free burgers as gifts than anything else.

“Pallad, what are you—” Hiiro’s voice breaks off as soon as he steps into CR and finds not just Pallad but Emu standing there. “Emu.”

“This looks awkward, I’m gonna go,” Pallad says, getting to his feet. Emu whirls on him, ready to beg him to stay, but he grins apologetically and disappears in a swirl of pixels.

Great. It’s not bad enough that the rest of the hospital and the public is gossiping about him, but now the Bugsters are too. Emu squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, then turns to face Hiiro again.

“I think these are for you,” he says, offering the box of chocolates to Hiiro. “There’s no name, though.”

Hiiro makes a noise that’s more of a grunt than anything else and accepts the chocolates, brushing past Emu on his way into the main room. Emu stays in place, staring at the spot Hiiro had been standing, wondering why it feels like someone has emptied his insides of anything warm.

“Hey,” he says finally, and his voice echoes too loud in the empty room. “I’m sorry.”

Hiiro is silent for a moment, then he says, careful and low, “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

Emu frowns, turning to see Hiiro. He’s dropped the chocolates on the coffee table, his back to Emu, every line of his shoulders set in tension under his lab coat. The air between them hovers with uncertainty, awkwardness, and feelings Emu had thought they’d gotten over long ago.

“Okay,” he says, hating the way his voice shakes. “Then can you tell me the truth?”

Hiiro hesitates, just long enough that Emu almost leaves. “About what?”

Emu takes a step closer, watches the way Hiiro’s spine stiffens at the sound of it. “Did you not want me to kiss you?”

“I didn’t say that.” Hiiro’s voice is rough, his words bitingly careful. “You were drunk. It would be inappropriate—it would have been taking advantage of you.”

“Ohh.” Emu draws the word out. “That’s the only reason you pushed me away?”

Hiiro exhales and turns to look him in the eye. “Yes, Hojo. That’s the only reason I pushed you away. I didn’t want you to regret it.”

Emu stops his first response, then his second. “I thought… I thought it was about Saki. I didn’t want to make you feel like you were cheating on her.”

Hiiro shakes his had, runs a hand over his face, messing up his hair. It looks adorably out-of-place on his serious face. “It’s not that. I know—Saki told me to move on. To be the best doctor I can be. To not feel so guilty over her. I can—do that now. But I didn’t want to mess this up like I messed that up.”

_This_ , he gestures at the space between their bodies. Emu closes the gap one step further.

“And,” Hiiro continues, his face tinging pink. “Everything with Cyber Rescue and the fan clubs and the… gifts…”

Emu has to bite down on his lip to keep from laughing in Hiiro’s face. “You mean the dildos?”

“I mean everything,” Hiiro says, flustered. “You could be with anyone, and not have to deal with all this drama.”

“Yeah, but not _anyone_ has been there for me since I became Ex-Aid,” Emu points out. “None of those people have seen me at my worst, at my lowest. You have.”

Hiiro runs his tongue over his lips. “So you weren’t just drunk?”

Emu smiles. “It was just wine, Hiiro.”

“Ah.” Hiiro glances down, then back up at him. “So… do you still—”

“You think I got over you in a week?” Emu teases.

Hiiro blinks at him.

Emu leans over and braces his hands on Hiiro’s shoulders, waits for him to meet his lips halfway. This kiss is slower and softer, less messy than the wine-induced one at his house, but it still tastes the same: warm and sweet and uncertain. Beneath his touch, Hiiro’s shoulders relax, and then he brings his own hands up to frame Emu’s face, holding him near even when the kiss breaks.

“You know,” Emu whispers conspiratorially, “you’re gonna be upsetting a lot of people with this. The great Kamen Rider Brave, off the market.”

Hiiro huffs out a breath of laughter. “Not as many as you, I assume.” And then he kisses Emu again before he can needle him further and their fan clubs and fame are the furthest thing from Emu’s mind as the lights of Cyber Rescue dim around them and all that’s left is Hiiro and his kiss.

.

“This isn’t going to work,” Hiiro insists, gaze darting left and right. There’s only one photographer anywhere near the hospital right now, and the usual mill of people wandering around playing video games in an effort to find the Kamen Riders.

“Of course it is,” Emu assures him, wrapping the blue and pink scarf tight around Hiiro’s neck. “Just pretend you’re someone completely different.”

Hiiro scowls at him, which Emu quickly covers up by propping sunglasses up over his eyes. “Someone different, who?”

“Someone who doesn’t like sweets,” Emu suggests.

Hiiro frowns. “I can’t do that.”

Emu laughs and adjusts his own glasses. “Come on. This’ll blow over soon. Until then, we’re just two, totally normal, _not_ Kamen Riders out on a date.”

“A date,” Hiiro repeats. Emu nearly takes it back, but then Hiiro clears his throat and nods. “Right. We can do this.”

“And if we can’t, we’ll ask the Bugsters to come here and cause a distraction,” Emu says, holding up his cell phone. “Poppy’s on call. You know they can still freak anyone out.”

Hiiro’s lips quirk in the semblance of a smile. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

Emu grins and takes his hand, fingers interlacing, and tugs him off in the direction of the park, leaving the hospital behind for the day. It’s cold out and the sun isn’t fully visible through the clouds, but he thinks, it’s still going to be a pretty good day.


End file.
